In the past, financial services have been made available in various ways depending on the type of service being offered. For a variety of reasons, the methods of providing brokerage services, such as the buying and selling of securities, and of providing traditional banking services, such as depositing and withdrawing funds, have been extremely divergent. For example, customers usually accessed banking services in the past through person to person service at branch locations. More recently, the trend is toward increased automation of customer banking transactions primarily through use of automatic teller machines (ATMs). On the other hand, many brokerage services are often initiated by direct customer-broker contact, for example, over the telephone or by facsimile. Once an order is received, the brokerage company performs the requested service, such as buying or selling a particular security at the appropriate exchange.
For many customers, dealing with a service provider in person can prove to be burdensome. For instance, in order to buy a particular security, the customer will generally verify the current selling price of a security to be purchased and then contact a broker to request that the purchase be made. One or both of these steps introduces a time lag which may result in the transaction failing to go through as intended by the customer.
Recent technological developments have somewhat improved brokerage services. In particular, improved communications methods have made it easier for a customer to contact a broker to place an orders or to obtain information. Other new methods have also made it easier for the broker to implement orders and to obtain up-to-date information regarding security prices. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,376,978, 4,597,046 and 4,774,663 describe a system for supervising a margin securities account wherein the system verifies various account activities, such as check cashing, and determines available credit so as to maintain free credit cash in one or more short term accounts. U.S. Pat. No. 4,674,044 describes an automated securities trading system. U.S. Pat. No. 5,270,922 describes a system for providing financial information such as market ticket, quotation and news information.
While providing many benefits, such prior art systems are generally limited to use by brokers or more sophisticated, affluent consumers who generate a fairly large volume of transactions. Moreover, while keeping track of certain other financial transactions for the purpose of preventing floats, these systems generally lack integration with non-brokerage financial transactions. In particular, most lack any means of providing the functions traditionally made available through a bank teller, such as depositing and receiving funds.
Some attempts have been made both to increase the availability of the financial services to a greater portion of the consumer market and to integrate various financial transactions. For example, the development of networks of automatic teller machines (ATMs) have greatly expanded the hours of operation during which banking services are available, while reducing operating costs. Generally, these machines have been used to reproduce the most common functions traditionally provided by a bank teller, such as receiving deposits, dispensing funds from a customers accounts, and responding to balance inquiries.
The assignee of the present invention has been an industry leader in developing improved techniques for delivery banking services. These techniques have particularly enhanced the customer's means of accessing various banking transactions. FIG. 1A illustrates some of the access points through which such services are made available to customers. These include an enhanced telephone 2, a personal computer 4, and a customer activated terminal (CAT) 6. As shown, the enhanced telephone 2 and the personal computer 4 provide access points to a proprietary service platform 8 known as home services delivery system (HSDS) 8. HSDS 8 interfaces with a front end system 10 referred to as a transaction processing system (TPS) which is described in more detail below. Other access points 12 may include telephone or personal contact with bank representatives who can access the system on behalf of the customer.
In general, the terminals illustrated in FIG. 1A provide uniformity with regard to the interface between the customer and the bank's system. For example, the terminology used and the sequences of the displays by which the customer exchanges information present a high degree of consistency. This promotes ease of use and encourages a customer's reliance on automated delivery systems to perform banking transactions, rather than less efficient person to person contact between a customer and a bank representative.
Personal computers such as the one illustrated in FIG. 1A are well known in the art and require no further description. Enhanced telephones have been developed by an affiliate of the assignee, and are described in several patents, including U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,991,199, 5,088,927, 5,195,130, and 5,321,840.
The CAT referred to in FIG. 1A is a particular type of ATM built for the assignee and its affiliates by Citicorp Transaction Technology Inc. Unlike many other ATMs which function primarily or solely as cash dispensing machines, CATs provide a wide range of banking functionality. These include “basic” services such as cash withdrawal, deposits and payments, transfer between accounts, balance inquiries, transaction histories, and purchases of travellers checks. As shown in FIG. 1B, a CAT 6 includes structures generally corresponding to those found in a conventional ATM to carry out these functions. Standard structures include a magnetic card reader 22 for reading information encoded on a customer's card, a depository 24 for accepting deposit and payment envelopes, and a cash dispensing mechanism 26. Internal components include a processor 30 and a communications device 32 for data communication with a host system 10.
The CAT 6 also utilizes more advanced structures in comparison to many conventional ATMs. For example, the primary customer interface is a dynamic touch screen 28 which utilizes color graphics. This interface is more versatile than many other ATMs in that it is readily reconfigurable so as to accommodate changing newly developed functionality. Moreover, it provides an interactive display in which buttons and keys are replaced with images of familiar three-dimensional objects.
It will be appreciated that the enhanced telephone 2 and the personal computer 4 shown in FIG. 1A differ dramatically from the CAT 6 in that the former include no means to perform mechanical functions through a fund depository or a dispensing mechanism. However, all the data terminals illustrated in FIG. 1A, including the CAT 6, the enhanced telephone 2 and the personal computer 4 provide a substantially uniform interface for performing many other financial transactions. These financial transactions include traditional banking functions, such as transferring funds between a checking account and a savings account. Additionally, several of the access points referred to in FIG. 1A can be used to perform “non-traditional” functions, such as bill payment, information retrieval, and access to customer accounts for mutual funds offered by the present assignee and/or its affiliates. In particular, data terminals such as the CAT 6, the enhanced telephone 2, and the personal computer 4, have been used by customers to transfer funds among money market accounts, checking accounts, and savings accounts. They have also been used to purchase, redeem and exchange shares of mutual funds offered by companies affiliated with the assignee of the present invention. Delayed price quotations through a vendor of such services have also been made available. Thus, these access points form a part of a increasingly integrated financial system.
While providing many benefits, the services available through the systems described in reference to FIGS. 1A and 1B were limited in several respects. Foremost, no provision was made to buy, sell, or receive price quotations for the vast array of securities publicly available through various exchanges and other financial institutions. Instead, only a limited number of funds were available through an affiliated company. Moreover, being limited primarily to money market accounts, a danger existed that a less-sophisticated customer would not adequately distinguish between a transfer of funds between a federally insured account, such as a standard checking account, and a non-insured account.